Economic Inequality in Capitalism

        

The thesis I want to defend in this essay is that society benefits from the economic inequality generated by capitalism. People do not want to accept the enriching mysteries of economic inequality. I want to deal as directly as I can with the disparity of income between rich and poor. The political Left and the political Right understand the disparity quite differently. I want to describe the difference as fairly as I can.

Government does not create wealth. It lives off the wealth others create. John Kekes (A Case for Conservatism, 1998) defines justice as social and political arrangements in which people consistently receive what they deserve. This definition assumes inequality of social arrangements. In this, he differs from the egalitarian definition provided by John Rawls, in Theory of Justice (1971). One of the basic lessons we learn is that life is not fair. Yet, some people seem uncomfortable with inequality.

In Politics, IV.11 (1295b), Aristotle discusses the proper arrangement of wealth. It ought not surprise us that he considers the mean the best, contrasting it with rule by masses of poor and rule by a few rich. His point is that the best government will be democratic, but wealth itself will have broad distribution. Now, I would argue that the experience of capitalism in America has brought the gift of a broad distribution of wealth. I would further argue that what constitutes “poor” in this nation would be middle class in many nations.

Envy and greed are twin issues in the human condition. We see the greed of executives who earn millions while running their companies into the ground. We see the envy of people whom daily work hard and offer valuable services envying people who have earned millions more while playing games, acting, or simply experiencing some good fortune. None of it seems fair. The harsh reality is that it is not fair. The design of the system called capitalism is not fairness. 

         Some people hold that society must not hold the poor morally accountable for their economic condition. This view does a disservice to the poor, especially in terms of their accountability for how they treat themselves, how they treat others, and the work habits they develop.

         My background is that of lower middle class, blue-collar father with working mother and five children. I am not sure why, but the populist appeal by the political Left has never appealed to me. I have never wanted the wealthy of this country to help me by providing my health care or housing. I have never looked at them as benefitting unfairly, lucky, or greedy. In my experience, wealthy people are neither better nor worse than are other economic brackets. Sin spreads itself around quite evenly. 

First, I think most societies tend to have hostility toward its greatest benefactors, the producers of wealth.  Rage against the wealthy is still an idea that works with many people and politicians. Critics of capitalism want wealth in the nation without the apparent embarrassment of an economic class we can label as “rich.”  Critics find it easier to label them as evil, corrupt, and oppressive. With derision, people call it “trickle down” economics. The hostility of many on the political Left toward those who have achieved financial success is intense. 

Some proponents of this view will refer to the Bible as supporting this hostility. A favorite “proof text” for such attitudes comes from Matthew 19:24, where Jesus says, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” In 1706, Matthew Henry explains this passage by saying, “Rich people have great temptations to resist, more duties are expected of them than from others, which they can hardly do…It must be a great measure of divine grace that will enable a man to break through these difficulties.” Wealth comes with special challenges and responsibilities, but it is hardly a crime deserving of punishment or discouragement. Inconveniently, the Bible also says that the legal system must not favor the poor, or the rich (Lev 19:15).

Part of the motivation for expansion of the federal government is care for the poor. This is laudable and, from the perspective of one who takes the Bible seriously, in line with what it means to be a follower of Jesus. From a Christian perspective, actions toward the poor and marginalized is central to true religion. Israel was commanded to be generous to the poor (Deut 15:10-11); Job cites sympathy for the poor as proof of righteousness (30:25); the Psalms praise God as a defender of the poor (e.g., 12:5; 14:6). ‘Whoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker,’ says Proverbs 14:31, ‘but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.’ The prophets condemn ‘grinding the face of the poor,’ as God says in Isaiah 3:15, and God’s victory over evil will bring plenty for the poor (e.g., Isaiah 14:30). By Luke’s account, Jesus began his ministry by announcing ‘good news to the poor’ (4:14-30), and he reiterated commands of generosity, both explicitly (Matt 25:31-46) and in broader words (Matthew 7:12). The church in Jerusalem kept a common purse and ‘sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need’ (Acts 2:42-47), and Christian responsibility to the poor is an assumption running through the Epistles (e.g., Rom 15:26; Gal 2:10; James 2:1-6). Scripture’s final vision of a rescued Earth is one of abundance (Rev 21:1-4; 22:1-4). We can be thankful that we already have a welfare state that protects people from the extremes of deprivation of the basics to sustain life. I do think such aid would best come from the combination of a variety of activities from states, local communities, and private efforts. The federal government acts most efficiently when dealing with the mass, such as mailing out social security checks, rather than dealing with matters have zip code. 

What has become liberal ideology has no problem setting one economic class against another. Producers are “malefactors of great wealth,” according to the progressive, Theodore Roosevelt. Interestingly, Al Smith, the presidential candidate of the Democrat Party in 1928, disagreed with Franklin Roosevelt in 1931. As noted by Amity Shales (The Forgotten Man, 2007), he said he would oppose anyone who would make demagogic appeal to “working people” to destroy themselves by setting class against class, rich against poor. I find this insightful, in that such rhetoric divides the masses from the very people who can improve their economic lot in life. By contrast, Franklin Roosevelt would target class enemies in the name of reform. In particular, he targeted the lack of honor by people in high places and crooks as the cause of the Great Depression. John Dillenger and other depression era gangsters became folk heroes because they robbed only the banks that people like Roosevelt targeted as the cause of the depression. Sadly, the Democrat Party has long been the party of encouraging a victim mentality on the part of a group of citizens, setting themselves as targeting the enemy (bankers, oil, pharmaceuticals, the rich, and so on). Yet, the producers are the people the nation needs investing, taking risks, and creating wealth. When the producers do these things, they do not create only for themselves. They create wealth for others as well. They do so directly through hiring people, and indirectly by providing a vehicle for investments. These investments are not only for the few. Today, they include large retirement funds that will provide a living for many people when they retire. My point, of course, is that such people are a small number of Americans upon whom the nation relies for present and future growth. Instead of making it difficult for them through regulation and taxation, as well as political rhetoric, these persons deserve the support and encouragement of government. Yet, liberalism continues to attack the people the nation needs to continue growing its wealth. 

Government benefits ranging from housing subsidies, food stamps, Medicaid, fuel assistance, the Earned Income Tax Credit, or welfare. Further, poverty is a relative thing. Trends in furnishings and accessories tell the same story: poor households' possession of modern conveniences has been growing rapidly.

         Here is another place were liberal and conservative part company. For Congress to guarantee a right to health care, or any other good or service, whether a person can afford it or not, it must diminish someone else's rights, namely their rights to their earnings. As the Congress of today seems quite willing to diminish the rights of those not yet born through the national debt, the country has decided to tax them without their representation. The reason is that Congress has no resources of its very own. Moreover, there is no Santa Claus, Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy giving them those resources. The fact that government has no resources of its very own forces one to recognize that for government to give one American citizen a dollar, it must first, through intimidation, threats, and coercion, confiscate that dollar from some other American. Today, that American has not been born. If one person has a right to something he did not earn, of necessity it requires that another person not have a right to something that he did earn. Rev. William Boetcke, Presbyterian pastor, quite rightly said that we do not strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. (The saying gained in familiarity due to its incorrect ascription to Abraham Lincoln). Yet, that is precisely what the American liberal is trying to do. 

Critics of capitalism do not want to accept the harsh reality that the bottom of the economic ladder does not create wealth.  To put it graphically, none of us would go to a poor person and ask for a job.  Rather, we go to those who have generated wealth.  The same is true for the churches, who must generate income for their ministries and building campaigns primarily with the help of those who have wealth and are committed to the mission of the church. Because of the passion and compassion of the wealthy, they foster opportunities for the economic classes below them.  Yet, no other group in society can do the risk-bearing role that the rich play as effectively.  

The United States is the most upwardly mobile society in history. A growing and dynamic society should value such upward mobility. Incomes are not stagnant. Opportunities continue to exist. The right thing to do is protect individual liberty and private property, which carries with it the responsibility of conducting government affairs in a fiscally responsible way. If I thought it would add to my argument, I could point to the many places in the Bible that protect private property from stealing. I could also point to the abuses of power by kings as an argument in favor of limited government. If I were to do so, such points would be for illustrative purposes only. For me, this means low taxes and allowing people to experience both the blessings and consequences of their choices. The only way the government can give to one set of citizens is to take from another set of citizens. I find this to be a moral issue.

         I want to take seriously and walk us through some of the anger many people feel toward the way the capitalism distributes income. 

In every country, there is anger about the distribution of income.  In command economies, the rulers receive that anger.  In market-oriented economies, the market receives that anger.  We all think that we are more valuable than what the market will allow. Inequality of income distribution in free market societies often becomes the focal point of economic and political debate. Citizens often hear the unequal distribution of income in a context that suggests it is a dreadful thing. We ought to distribute income more equally, so some have suggested.  

         The anger is legitimate from a historical perspective. The unequal distribution of income was morally wrong. It resulted from a small group, military or hereditary in nature, that imposed its will upon the people, keeping them at an income level that provided necessities, but rarely more than that. The political powers used taxation for that purpose. Often, disparity of income rested upon various forms of slave labor. Uneven economic distribution for these reasons is never moral. For that reason, Israelite prophets often condemned the kings and merchants for their oppression of most of the population, often as much as 80% of it. 

         Another part of our anger with unequal income distribution occurs because of inherited wealth. Even though statistics show that unless they learn to manage this wealth and put it to work, they will lose it, critics of capitalism will want the federal government to have tax policies that reduce the influence of inherited wealth. Yet, one does not need to resort to government to even the playing field. The stupidity and carelessness of many wealthy persons will do fine.

         Another part of our anger with the unequal distribution of wealth is the distorted value of what people offer.  We often puzzle why some people are richer than others are.  Well, some people have a greater capacity to please others than most of us do. A basketball player can earn millions a year, while a teacher earns a few thousand.  Yet, a player like Michael Jordan not only reached the highest level of the game thus far, but he pleased millions of people with his play.  In other words, people are worth what the market value of their gift is.  While there are thousands of teachers, there is only one Michael Jordan.

         Clearly, another part of our anger with unequal distribution of income is our compassion for the poor. As noted, this is a laudable, moral, and Christian concern. We live in a world full of poor people; no matter how much wealth we create. People lack the resources, income and skills required to participate meaningfully in civil and political life. According to the Harvard School of Risk Analysis, poverty cuts life expectancy of the poor in America by nine years, by far the greatest health risk any American faces.^[1] Poverty is a circumstance of alienation from the basic institutions of modern society. Therefore, poverty is a matter of deep concern, even if it seems insoluble. 

         Second, I want to focus upon the way we think about the rich. I do so, not having ever been rich, and knowing only a few people who are.

         The assumption of the Left is that people are wealthy because they have taken something that legitimately belongs to the poor. The assumption of the Right is that people are wealthy largely because they have worked hard and earned it. The Left is willing to divide America into two cities, one rich and one poor. The Left is willing to divide the global community into two nations, the wealthy and the poor. Such divisions overly simplify a problem that is far more complex. 

         The failure of the analysis of economic life by the political Left is greatest at this point. Animosity and alienation that the approach of the Left engenders toward the wealthy is not a helpful emotion to generate, either among themselves or among the poor. It tends to make the poor victims, the wealthy and corporations the persecutors, and the elite of the Left, through the agencies of government, as rescuers of the poor. Such a position encourages the poor to look to the government for entitlements to rescue them. The poor then think that other people owe them a living. When others do not meet their demand, they will wind up believing everyone is their enemy. The assumption seems to be that someone has designed a global system in which a few benefits and gain wealth whereas most experience the global system as victims. 

         In offering a mistaken analysis of the problem, the political Left offers unwise tax and spend politics as a remedy. For example, the bifurcation of the world between wealthy nations and poor nations is the result of the unequal distribution of freedom, not the unequal distribution of wealth. Economic freedom and political freedom require cultural values that will support them. They also require changes in the traditions to the value of respecting the worth and dignity of others, regardless of their beliefs. In 2003, according to the Heritage Foundation, Hong Kong, Singapore, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Ireland, Denmark, Estonia, America, Australia, and the United Kingdom are the countries with the greatest economic freedom in the world. The countries with the least amount of economic freedom were North Korea, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Laos, and Libya. The economic division in the world is not so much between rich and poor nations, but rather between free and totalitarian nations. The genuine experience of freedom in some countries is the primary reason they experience economic well-being. 

         The political Left also misreads the statistics involving the unequal distribution of income, refusing to consider the temporary, contingent, and historical nature of the place one finds oneself on the economic ladder. The horror one senses in the voice and pen of those on the Left arise because their perspective is one in which statistics of wealth distribution are static pictures of the economy at one moment in time.  They do not want to consider that such statistics reflect the normal up and down movement of income throughout the year or the decade.  For example, the bottom of the economic ladder will have a sizable portion of elderly because they are past their productive years. The bottom of the economic ladder will also consist of a substantial proportion of young people, since they are at the beginning of their productive years, a fact that suggests that a sizable proportion of children will always be toward the bottom of the economic ladder. None of this suggests that the problem is not real. It only means that, for most young families, living toward the bottom of the economic ladder is a temporary situation. Since the young and the old will always be with us, we will always have people at the bottom of the income ladder.  Further, people who self-destruct through drugs, alcohol, crime, the failure to educate themselves toward the best life they can lead, will always be with us. Such observations do not suggest doing nothing, although they do bring some realism into the discussion in the public square.

         Here is the main point of this discussion. The inequality of income distribution within capitalism is one of its best features because it is the result of freedom. 

Focusing upon the distribution of income rather than production, we will forever count how many rich and poor exist, become outraged at the discrepancy, and argue for a government powerful enough to re-distribute wealth.  The focus on distribution assumes that wealth is a zero-sum game, in which the gain for one person means a decline for another. However, assuming an equal distribution of freedom among citizens, people still have different abilities, talents, desires, and characteristics.  We are unequal by nature.  In culture, this natural inequality rises to an inequality of skill and resources, and even to one of moral and intellectual attainment.  The demand for a right of equality takes as real and rational the abstract nature of equality.  There is no way government can equalize these differences, except by force.  

Further, the moral problem with the apparent unfairness of unequal income distribution is to encourage envy and bitterness between classes.  It also does not keep the focus on what the poor need, such as education, training, formation of character, self-reliance, and achievement.

The mystery is not why there is poverty, for that has existed for most of human history and for most of the people.  The mystery we ought to seek to unravel is why capitalism has generated so much affluence. The answer may be freedom to pursue one's own interests without interference, and government protection of private property rights. The answer may be the structure of freedom that the liberal democracies have provided their citizens. That structure includes domestic life, civic life free of government, and political life in which one can meaningfully participate. This culture of freedom provides the opportunity to respect the worth and dignity of individuals as well as belong to various social groups in ways that other societies cannot do.

         Who are these rich people?  

         These persons are ordinary people who happen to be at the stage of their lives where they are earning more than they did in years past and more than they will be earning in the future.  They are people in their 50's or early 60's who have worked their way up to a decent income and are seeing much of it drained away by politicians who proclaim that the rich ought to pay their fair share.  The rich, therefore, are not a different class of people than anyone else.  Rather, they are people in older age brackets who have accumulated some money in a pension fund, paid off most of their mortgage and put a little money aside to see them through retirement and the illnesses of old age.  The average net worth by someone 65 years old or older is more than 10 times the net worth of households headed by someone under 25.  These are not different classes, for the one who is now 65 was at one time 35.  Most Americans will have incomes in the top 10% at some point during their lives.

         Third, I want to focus our attention upon the poor in America. Søren Kierkegaard, in a journal entry he quotes for his book Christian Discourses, Etc. (1849), refers to journalists who earn their living, many doing so in luxury and abundance, by writing on poverty. His sarcastic point, I think, is that many people use the poor to serve an ideological agenda, rather than help the poor. I have no desire to fall into that category. The design of the rest of this essay is to point the way toward helping poor people to move out of poverty.

         We need to begin with a better understanding of where we are. Being poor in America does not entail the same degree of deprivation it once did in this country and as it still does in other countries. 

         Spending patterns provide a clue. The percentage of spending by poor households for food is declining. The smaller the share of income going to meet basic needs, the more money left over to purchase the goods and services that most poor households once had to do without. Thus, most poor households have needed appliances (washing machine, dryer, microwave ovens, color television, cable, air conditioning) and motor vehicles. Many own their own homes and have credit cards. They begin to look like the middle class. The poor spend more than they earn, the reason being the income transfers to them through government programs, mostly through food stamps, unemployment benefits, AFDC, Medicare, Medicaid, school lunches, rent subsidies, and other programs.  Many have savings to fall back on.  Many retirees have low incomes, but own their home, car, and furnishings. If we were to look at consumption, most of America is in the middle class, Daniel Slesnick of the University of Texas suggesting as high as 98%. If the problem of poverty is access to goods and services, then this fact provides a better indication of how the economy combined with government programs has done in lifting families out of poverty.

         Thus, the price of things one might use, such as electronics, has come down, while the actual comfort one experiences can increase, even while the income disparity is greater. The tax code encourages payment in benefits rather than salary, and so many Americans are experiencing greater comfort for that reason as well. Middle class Americans are experiencing greater satisfaction when they shop, as their choices have advanced. Thus, Bill Gates has a bigger house, but his access to medical care and the Internet are not different from that of many Americans. Most Americans are not envious of the upper one percent. Most Americans recognize that increasing tax rates to 40%, which is higher than most European countries, would simply produce more tax avoidance. 

         Fourth, instead of rhetoric about the poor, we can engage in some straight talk about how poor people can rise out of poverty. Poverty is an alienating condition that one must overcome. Some government sources may prove helpful. However, the only dependable route from poverty is to reorient oneself toward the culture. 

We need to be willing to ponder the long-term effect of creating dependence upon government for our basic needs. It will take intellectual and moral courage to do so.

         F.A. Hayek, an Austrian economist living in Britain, wrote The Road to Serfdom in 1944 as a warning that central economic planning would extinguish freedom. The book was a hit. Reader's Digest produced a condensed version that sold 5 million copies. Hayek meant that governments cannot plan economies without planning the lives of people. An economy is just individuals engaging in exchanges. People must shelve their own plans in favor of a single government plan. Hayek acknowledges that mere material wealth is not all that is at stake when the government controls our lives: "The most important change ... is a psychological change, an alteration in the character of the people." This should not be controversial. If government relieves us of the responsibility of living by bailing us out, character will atrophy. The welfare state, however good its intentions of creating material equality, cannot help but make us dependent. That changes the psychology of society. The danger of serfdom is not that we all work for the government. It means that we change from independent, self-responsible people into a submissive flock. The welfare state kills the creative spirit.

         Here is a way to help the poor. Walter Williams, in his article “Are the Poor Getting Poorer,” (October 31, 2007), examines some numbers from the Census Bureau's 2004 Current Population Survey. One segment of the black population suffers only a 9.9 percent poverty rate, and only 13.7 percent of their under-5-year-olds are poor. Another segment of the black population suffers a 39.5 percent poverty rate, and 58.1 percent of its under-5-year-olds are poor. Among whites, one population segment suffers a 6 percent poverty rate, and only 9.9 percent of its under-5-year-olds are poor. Another segment of the white population suffers a 26.4 percent poverty rate, and 52 percent of its under-5-year-olds are poor. He then points out that the only statistical distinction between both the black and white populations is marriage. There is far less poverty in married-couple families, where presumably at least one of the spouses has employment. Fully 85 percent of black children living in poverty reside in a female-headed household. 

Domestic life becomes important, involvement in places of employment and other civic institutions, and acceptance of the modest role one can play in political world, all become crucial. Re-engagement with the culture involves attitudes like faith, hope, self-esteem, development of skill, and entering contracts with others. To depart from the underclass requires movement to a different place in one’s mind and heart that includes work, family, and faith.  The poor must work harder than other classes to rise out of poverty.  The maintenance of monogamous marriage and family is also an important part of rising out of poverty.  Marriage is a consistent encouragement toward rising out of poverty.  Further, faith in humanity, in oneself, and in the future, is an important part of the psychology of rising out of poverty.  The poor need to have the same freedoms and opportunities, the values of family and faith, which are indispensable to all wealth and progress. What the underclass need is not handouts that fail to recognize their capacity to improve themselves. What they do need are mentors who teach by world and deed the value of actualizing oneself and being a social member. Even William Galston, assistant to Bill Clinton said that to avoid poverty, just do three things: finish high school, marry before having a child, and do not have that child until you are at least twenty years old. Only eight percent of the people who do all three of those things wind up poor.

         Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams, both African-American political conservatives, have done much research into what has happened within the African-American community. The rise of government programs does not seem to help. Illegitimacy and crime grew with the rapid growth of AFDC programs. The decline of the fathers in the African-American household is the largest single variant in this picture. Efforts to end discrimination and poverty must begin here, in a re-valuation of the important of family for the incorporation of proper values for participation in modern society. The African-American community is an example of a sub-culture that has low trust, and therefore less ability to work together toward a common purpose. The cultural habits necessary to share norms and values so that people learn to work well together has not developed. Many ethnic communities, such as Chinese or Jewish communities, stick together and buy from each other. The black community has a lower rate of self-employment; an entrepreneurial class has not developed.

         Compassion that genuinely helps the poor or underclass will have several components. One is re-connecting people to family, friends, and local community. Mentoring on a one-to-one basis is a crucial step. Those who help the poor need to give time, love, and counsel. Cases in which persons have severe problems with self-destructive behavior, such as alcohol, drugs, or general laziness, need a separate form of treatment from those who simply need motivation and skill. Frankly, any subsidizing of injurious behavior to self or to others by the government does not help the poor find their way out of poverty. When the poor see such behavior subsidized by government it discourages them from making needed changes in their lives. This fact recognizes that personal conduct, using one’s freedom to make self-destructive choices, makes an important, even if not definitive, contribution to one’s economic condition. Work is critical to building self-esteem and hope in the future. Consequently, work needs to be a condition for compassion, not because one is cruel, but because one has genuine compassion. The vision is that freedom from government support is important for future improvement of economic life. Escaping poverty is, in one sense, painfully simple: long hours, good morality, decent work habits, and commitment to family. Compassion needs the balance of challenging people to lead the best human life they can lead. For the challenging cases (alcohol, drugs, and crime), some form of spiritual transformation is often necessary, a genuine conversion to a new form of life than that to which one had committed oneself. Such recognition that one has been in the wrong, and needs to have life made right, is not easy to achieve. With a purely secular or scientific program, it is almost impossible. In any case, those in need of help can make it, not because of a government check, but because others take an interest in them.

         Michael Novak has made the point that we must work out our understanding of economics with the poor always at the center of our attention.  Frankly, any society that failed to exhibit concern in its members would be an objectively alienating society. The enlightenment moral aspiration of liberty, fraternity, and equality is consistent with the abolition of poverty and the increase of wealth.  

The political Left and Right can be compassionate. A person’s political opinion to spend government funds on aid programs is not evidence that the person is compassionate.  The political opinion to spend money on defense is not a sign that a person is brave.  The political opinion to spend government money on sports is not a sign that a person is physically fit.  In the same way, one who lacks compassion may favor various government aid programs.  Conversely, a compassionate person may oppose those programs.  Our political beliefs are not a test of compassion.  If you want to determine how compassionate an individual is you should ask what charitable contributions the person has made, or what volunteer work he or she has done. You might also inquire into how the person responds to the needs of relatives, friends, and neighbors. True compassion is a bulwark of strong families and communities, of liberty and self-reliance.  True compassion is people helping people with a genuine sense of caring.  It is not asking your legislator or member of Congress to do it for you.  True compassion comes from your heart, not from government treasuries.  True compassion is a deeply personal thing, not a check from a distant bureaucracy.

         Every attempt to reflect upon the moral content of an economic system must place at its heart what the impact is upon the weakest members of the society. At the risk of sounding absolute, every religious tradition of which I know urges compassion toward the weakest and poorest of society. The American experience is one of rooting for the downtrodden and the underdog. Our consideration of discourse in the public square will need to take that seriously. 

         Sympathy for the downtrodden and compassion for those less fortunate than oneself is part of what makes a person moral. Compassion has its roots in the harsh reality of poverty, combined with respect for those persons. For example, genuine compassion recognizes that some homes are poor and as well as good and happy. Compassion recognizes the capacity of the poor to respond to the demands of life and challenging them to achieve independence and a better human life. Well-meaning persons who provide some form of dole undermine their self-esteem and impair their capacity to thrive independently. 

         Marvin Olasky identifies seven "seals of good philanthropic practice."  1) The person helped needs to have ties restored to family, friends, and neighborhood.  2) The volunteer expects to become deeply involved in those needing help.  3) Those deserving of help were separated from the alcoholic, cheater, or lazy, those unwilling to change.  Helpers visited them to counsel and exhort them, but not to subsidize their behavior.  4) Discernment was necessary by the volunteer to spot potential fraud.  It was self-defeating when the poor saw others whom they knew who did not deserve help whom the system nevertheless helped.  5) They view work as critical to one's personal health.  They did not assume that everyone wanted to work.  It was a non-negotiable condition of aid.  6) They viewed freedom from government and the opportunity to work and worship as essential.  With long hours, good morality, and work habits, a family could escape poverty.  7) God.  Spiritual transformation was the only thing that could change an alcoholic, addict, or abuser into a productive, temperate citizen.  People reminded those in need of help that God created them in the image of God and that God had expectations of them.  Helpers combined charity with challenge. 

         All of this assumes that one dimension of poverty is moral. It suggests that one ought to lead a life that supports self and family. To remove moral responsibility from the quality of a human life, including what one achieves with this time and this body, one ignores an important aspect of the solution of poverty. In my judgment, the political class has embarked upon a program that singles out the poor for a socialist system. It makes them dependent upon the state for health care, housing, food, and income.  The government has turned the poor, regardless of the color of their skin, into slaves on a feudal plantation system. The good intentions of the Johnson War on Poverty programs have resulted in a rise in crime, illegitimacy, and money to fund the programs.  We must take responsibility for the monster we have created, note the devastating consequences, and correct our mistakes.

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^[1] John Stossel, Give Me a Break, 2005, p. 95.

Limited Government and Capitalism

         

Among the sharpest political divides in America is between those who want a limited role for the federal government, a view that unites those on the political Right, and those who want to expand that role, a view that unites those on the political Left. The intricate connection between a limited role for government and capitalism is one that deserves close attention. The constitution limits the powers of the federal government, spreading them across three branches, the presidency, and among the states. Recognizing the limits of what government can accomplish can seem sanguine and obstructionist. Piecemeal and fragmented reform make far more sense. It bites off only that portion of the problem in the system that one can chew on in this moment. I am dealing with more than that here. I am focusing on a mindset in relationship to the federal government from which many other political opinions will descend. 

Rather than jumping right into a discussion of the political divide, I begin with an understanding of culture that I will lead me to discuss the reasons a limited role for the federal government will serve the best interests of all citizens, whether they know this or not. 

The broadest context of the social nexus of human life is that of the shared world we call culture. Thus, I would like to consider ontology of culture.[1]

This cultural world is ambiguous, yet always is present. A field of social relations forms the self.  This process develops self-consciousness and subjectivity. Other selves are not simply objects, an “it,” but a field of social interactions over whom we have little control. Development of trust involves the formation of trust toward the shared world and the development of affective life. We at least need to hint at an ontology of the shared world. The fact of the shared world means humanity has never experienced a purely natural world. Yes, other animals have societies, but human beings have the symbols and institutions of culture. 

The sectors of culture include language, art, myth, religion, science, family, and economic relations. The experience of such cultural forms is the shared world of individuals.

We begin with the familiar “home-world,” rather than an abstract and isolated self. However, as we mature, we increasingly encounter the non-familiar, the strange, that makes us aware of a larger world-horizon. We puzzle ourselves as well as experience others as puzzles. Crossing such boundaries of the home-world of others and the larger world-horizon is an important part of what makes human beings who they are. Human beings are both the creators and the creatures of culture. The social world shapes human desire. Such a notion of “worlds” means that nothing is “natural,” but is the product of human interactions that generate norms that sometimes feel natural. This is why the type of social world is so important; for it needs to be an ethical world, meaning a world in which its members receive respect from authority and authority receive respect from citizens. Such an ethical world relies upon free participation rather than compulsion. With freedom at its heart, openness to such a social world can lead to meaning and wholeness. However, when the social world becomes tyrannical in any of its forms, openness draws back upon itself in fear, anxiety, and alienation.

Philosophers will reflect upon the freedom of play as a clue to the foundation of culture in the sense that people can lose themselves in play and adopt various roles. Language is already a basic form of culture in its effort to produce a positive deployment of peaceful relations with others. Conversation creates a common bond. The institutions of culture provide a shared lifeworld. The social system offers to those who participate roles to play, status, and role expectations. Family and property are the basis of all cultural forms. Family is the basic area of mutuality and individuality while property introduces conditions of reciprocity. 

Freedom is not an abstraction. Freedom occurs in the context of a shared world of beliefs, values, and institutions. 

The capitalism and liberal democracy that arose out of the Enlightenment was a matter of stumbling into them by trial, error, and good fortune. The success of the market system depended upon basic bourgeois values, principles, ideas, habits, and sentiments. People who participate in this culture learn such values by seeing and hearing, primarily in family, but also in churches, schools, and other community organizations. Economic analysis of capitalism is not complete unless it factors into it the inculcated values of those who participate in the market system. The Enlightenment, for all its rationalism, acknowledged its dependence upon religion and virtue, as well as freedom. Freedom finds its best expression when it respects the value of tradition that we find in religion and in the virtue of its citizens. Capitalism will eat itself without the self-restraint we find in tradition and virtue. Freedom needs the guidance that tradition and virtue provide. Tocqueville was quite right to refer to this vision as virtuous communitarian freedom. One can defend it on purely secular and rational grounds.^[2] Capitalism is the free exchange of goods and services. One way to look at the mission of every business is to exercise all the imagination and initiative it can muster for producing goods, services, and occasions for human achievement that make the world better. Profit is the byproduct of successfully fulfilling that mission. Capitalism promotes the development of people skills, encouraging the development of valuable virtues like promise-keeping, providing for oneself and for family, respect for others, and attentiveness to the needs and hopes of others. Yet, it has come under attack as morally deficient in relation to the coercion one finds in statism, socialism, and communism. 

Learning to cooperate has been an important part of human societies. Yes, ancient societies could be brutal. Yet, prehistoric men and women helped each other more than they harmed each other. Of course, they had some enlightened self-interest in doing so, but they did so, nonetheless. In all human societies, some individuals will come out ahead by harming others. Yet, most of the time, one maximizes personal good fortune by cooperating with others. Pre-historic human beings banded together for mutual aid. Hostile and destructive societies, such as Spartans or the Nazis, disappear while cooperative societies flourish. One could argue that good people do not finish last. Rather, they do better than bad people do. Most human interactions are win-win results, both parties coming out ahead. Of course, war is a “game” in which one party wins and the other loses, but most human interactions are not like that. The orientation of human beings is toward increasingly complex forms of social organization, thus moving away from imperial domination and war by the progressive adoption of interactions that provide the potential for win-win results. In fact, one could argue that the spread of global commerce brings a growing recognition of a common humanity.  One cannot do business with a people while executing them.^[3]

The social system generated by Liberal Democracy is one of partnership. The liberty liberal democracy encourages, particularly in the pursuit of individual happiness, encourages respect for the worth and dignity of individuals. Such respect includes honoring their property, their right to care for that property, the expression of the worth and dignity they have as individuals, the freedom they possess to form families, to become involved in civil society, to pursue their economic interests, and to participate in the political process. Where a modern society fails in its respect for individuals, peaceful reform is at least possible through participation in the political process. Liberal democracy is a partnership that acknowledges peaceful and nonviolent competition between individuals and groups, and the peaceful resolution of disputes through rational discourse, elections and through the courts.

The primary bond of modern society is internal, rooting itself in respect for the worth and dignity citizens offer each other. Citizens offer this respect between employer and employee, between producer and consumer, for a variety of motives, many involving self-interest. The acknowledgement that individuals spend most of their time caring for themselves is important. This is the only life any of us will lead. We properly spend time and energy caring for how to live this life. Yet, the free engagement of citizens with each other also brings them outside of themselves and brings transformation of individuals as they do so. The engagement with others is an ethical engagement by its nature and brings some reflection upon how one ought to behave toward other citizens. This reality increases the internal bonds of society. Civil society as understood within liberal democracies is, in principle, a nonviolent engagement with others. Citizens cooperate and compete, having the freedom to pursue their vision of the best human life. The freedom of engagements in this social world makes for an amazing lack of oppressor and oppressed relationships. Adam Smith noted that one of the three purposes of government is to intervene when one citizen or group of citizens oppresses another, recognizing that such oppressive relationships can occur in a liberal democracy and need to be corrected by the powers of the government.

Modern democratic societies represent the redemption of the social world from the dominant form of government, that of oppressed and oppressor, and invites many other forms of relationships. We might think of relationships like cooperation and competition, producer of products and consumer of products, employer and employee, teacher and student, serving a community, freely associating around specific tasks, political engagement, and so on. For such reasons, one can hope that the world one day will have every government understand that its primary duties are “to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” Given the variety of cultures, one can expect multiple institutional embodiments of the principles of economic and political freedom. However, the world will be increasingly peaceful and just if every government agrees with the United States that these are the proper goals of government.

Yet, the harsh reality is that our experience of economic freedom includes the fact that not everyone will find the pathway to full participation in such an economic system. They experience the deprivation and alienation of poverty. The promotion of any economic system depends upon the attention it gives to the poor. How can one say that capitalism is the best economic system for the poor? To put it simply, a system of economic freedom provides for movement between economic classes, rewarding people for their successes and giving consequences for their failure. The system treats individuals respectfully as responsible agents of their lives who need to discover their vocation and their avocation. Even the poor have the power to make judgments regarding their conduct and their future. The freedom individuals have and the values by which they live remain significant contributors to economic life. Values like thrift, sacrifice, job skill, and education are still important for the poor to possess. Personal character and moral choices continue to provide significant indicators to economic well-being. People will need to attend to the desires of their hearts, such as development of a strong domestic life, a monogamous marriage, and children at the appropriate time. Attention to these desires is essential to movement out of poverty. Caring for family is a consistently strong motivator to rise out of poverty. Yes, such behaviors appeal to enlightened self-interest, but this is hardly an appeal to selfishness in the narrow sense. One also directs one’s passion to the formation of a skill that will find a place of employment. One accepts the modest role one can play in other civic and political institutions. Such acts are crucial to successful participation. Such participation requires virtues like faith and hope in oneself, others, and the future. The pathway to such virtues may be long, given the difficult life experience of some, but are well worth the effort. What the poor need are mentors who teach by word and deed the value of actualizing one’s true self and becoming a participating member of various social institutions. The poor do not need an intended “compassion system” that fails to recognize they are responsible agents who can improve their lives through their choices.

Compassion is an important virtue in a free society. Consistent with the Roman Catholic doctrine of subsidiarity, compassion finds its best expression in the lowest and least level of authority. Such a view is particularly appropriate for the American federal system. The first one responsible to extend compassion is me, as an agent of my life, extending compassion toward people for whom I have responsibility, such as family, friends, and community. The type of compassion the poor need is financial and material in part, of course. Yet, it must include elements of the psychological, emotional, and spiritual. Such fully developed compassion is the way a free society helps the poor overcome the obvious alienation they have experienced and helps them become responsible agents of their lives and responsible members of their families, communities, and places of work. 

As an institution that helped shaped the culture and institutions of the West, the challenge the culture presents to the church is quite specific. Churches offer an opportunity to reflect upon ultimate commitments at a time when the only commitments worth considering are the immanent needs of human flourishing.

The best way for citizens to influence government is to keep it local. The Roman Catholic doctrine of subsidiarity is helpful here, as it keeps pushing matters to the smallest and lowest level authority. It will be best if the theory that governs those in political power assumes that individuals can and do govern themselves best. They will do so as they engage others and develop moral values. They will do so as they engage in voluntary associations, whether those associations are charitable, religious, or economic in nature. Voluntary associations of an economic nature will include producers, investors, workers, and consumers of the product or service. Civil society will solve most of the problems we see. However, at some point, local and state governments may need to act, but again, in America, problems that may need government action will have a greater likelihood of solution if pushed down to as local level as possible. The national state, as the constitution outlined, ought to have specific powers. Powers not specifically granted to the federal government ought to remain to the states, localities, and the free association of the people. 

This means that cultural meaning occurs in important ways through property, work, and economy. When government authority respects the property, work, and economic relationships in which citizens freely engage, it fulfills a vital role of acknowledging the worth and dignity of its citizens. Property expresses the particularity of the owner. It gives the owner a place to stand in the world, as Hannah Arendt put it The Human Condition. Work is the means whereby people turn their natural surroundings into an artificial world that serves to satisfy their needs. The cultural world is an accomplishment of the mutuality of individuals. Work suggests goods and services for others in trade and exchange, all of which fulfill the self-interests of those involved in the exchange. The means of production is human freedom and creativity. Such insights are from Adam Smith. Expanding the role of government runs the risk of deadening private initiative at its most local level as a means of resolving problems. Such a view is consistent with the Roman Catholic view of subsidiarity, which would suggest that matters solvable by free individual exchanges are the lowest and least aspect of authority. Freedom shows itself economically in the market system. Frederich Hayek calls this an emergent order, rather than a contrived, coerced, or controlled order.  Such complex interactions affect family ties, social custom, price fluctuations, and legal traditions. Such a system assumes the brokenness of the human condition but modifies it through the freedom of exchange. People trying to satisfy their material needs unconsciously organize themselves into an economy through myriad individual acts of buying and selling; it happens without anyone being in charge or consciously planning it. Nevertheless, individuals within the system promote the common good within a structured system. Free enterprise is decentralized planning, in which every member of the culture becomes part of the plan that emerges. The genius of the free enterprise system is the creativity, quality, and leadership of individual entrepreneurs. Success here involves learning to offer the gift one has in a way that responds to the needs of others. Such awareness is a dimension of love. One sacrifices to achieve in a way that is life-giving for self and others. Investing imagination and creativity toward an objective is not a selfish act. Even division of labor makes us rely upon the work of others in profound ways. Giving, risking, and creating are the characteristic roles of the capitalist, the key producer of the wealth of nations, from the least developed to the most advanced. Poverty is part of every economic arrangement. Political powers can increase and deepen poverty. The key is to provide movement out of poverty. To take personal conduct off the table is to denigrate the humanity of the poor. They have the power to make judgments about their conduct and their future. The freedom individuals have and the values by which they live remain significant contributors to economic life, even if they do not determine it. Values like thrift, sacrifice, job skill, and education are still important for the poor to possess. The only dependable route from poverty is to reorient oneself toward the cultural institutions of the free society. Faith, hope, self-esteem, development of skill, and entering contacts with others, are important ways out of poverty. Marriage and family are important to this process. Compassion by those who “have” toward those who do not yet “have” is important. Government policy that creates dependence upon an entitlement is not a dependable way out of poverty. 

Such a political ordering is logically untidy and flexible and an ambiguous compromise. Less messianic fervor and enlightened skepticism of what politicians, bureaucrats, and agencies can do, would be welcome, as well as more toleration of idiosyncrasies, and more room for personal taste and belief. We need less mechanical and fanatical application of general principles and a more cautious and less arrogant self-confident application of accepted, scientifically tested general solutions to unexamined individual cases. We need a loose texture and toleration of a minimum of inefficiency, indulgence in idle talk and curiosity, and aimless pursuit of this or that without authorization. Even the experience of alienation on the part of some individuals and groups reveals the desire that such an ethical state become a home-world for them as well. The welfare state does not provide a lasting substitute for such legitimation since no state can permanently satisfy all the needs of its citizens and guarantee their happiness. The recognition that happiness is personal pursuit, and not a guarantee from political leaders, provides a limit to political ideology and opens the door for religion. 

The ethical state I am envisioning is a liberal democracy. Liberal democracy creates a social order that exists more like a dance with moves that have reckless abandonment to it, while at the same time possessing subtle dimensions of order. The institutions of liberal democracy do not exist by means of force. They exist through an incredibly complex means of inter-connections that, with no one managing them, works together for the improvement of human life together.

 

The intellectual courage we will need is to rethink the Great Depression, the roles of Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt in extending it, and the disastrous influence of the expansion of government that Roosevelt began. Roosevelt was able to sell his notion of what created the Great Depression and the government spending he said the nation needed to get out of it. History books continue to sell his interpretation. Many of my fellow citizens would agree with my step-grandfather, who lived during the 1930's, “Thanks be to Roosevelt.” From what I read, that was a common conception, and helped form Democrat Party majorities in many elections for Congress since then. 

         Sometimes, however, progress means looking back to when you had a fork in the road, took what you thought was the right path, and discover you took the wrong road. You then must make your way back to where you took the wrong path and chart another course. I like to think that my fellow citizens might be building some courage to do that. Programs that are now making the United States bankrupt began during this period. George Will calls Social Security a ponzi scheme, the demographics of an aging population pushing the nation into bankruptcy. 

         Given that those who have a liberal orientation have done quite well in persuading people to their version of history, I would like to focus upon a few areas of American history that will require come intellectual courage, meaning willingness to move against what may feel like a dominant story, and be willing to explore other possibilities.

         Michael Gerson, in a February 26, 2010, article, points out that Theodore Roosevelt is a part of political conservatism. He warned that socialism “would spell sheer destruction.” "It would produce grosser wrong and outrage, fouler immorality, than any existing system." Modern corporate capitalism, he believed, was inevitable, even admirable. He also believed that overly centralized and unaccountable power in a capitalist system creates destructive clashes of labor and capital, rich and poor. So, he busted monopolistic trusts, imposed health standards on filthy meat-packing plants and promoted a more professional, merit-based civil service. Roosevelt’s progressivism could sound a bit like socialism. When courts struck down laws allowing strikes and limiting maximum work hours, Roosevelt warned, "If the spirit which lies behind these ... decisions obtained in all the actions of the ... courts, we should not only have a revolution, but it would be absolutely necessary to have a revolution because the condition of the worker would become intolerable. However, it was Roosevelt's political purpose to avoid a revolution. He sought to preserve the market system by regulating its health, safety, and fairness. This is not laissez faire, and therefore does not please the libertarian. However, another part of the conservative tradition is the use of incremental reform to diffuse radicalism. Today, few would wish to return to 19th-century labor, health, and antitrust standards. The political conservative, while wary of government interference, recognizes the importance of proper laws within which individuals and businesses carry out their free interactions. 

         One way to begin thinking courageously is to re-think Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge. Have you ever heard of the great depression of 1920? Of course not. Larry Schweikart has written an interesting analysis of this period, summarizing it in a February 24, 2010 article. The recession that began after the end of World War I never became a depression. As one can imagine, returning soldiers and the shift from wartime production would be a shock to the culture and economics of the country. Woodrow Wilson started the income tax to finance the war. He was able to sell the idea by making the ridiculously low, many people paying no taxes, the bottom bracket 1%, and the top bracket 6%. However, it did not take him long to nearly confiscate the wealthiest at 75 % and the bottom rate became 25%. James Cox, the Democrat Party nominee, ran on a platform of reducing wartime debt through a policy of maintaining the high taxes Wilson imposed. Wilson got away with this because of war. After the war, Americans expected to get their country back to the way it was. However, those who favored the income tax were not interested only in financing government. The progressives who proposed the idea always had as their primary end redistribution of wealth. Warren Harding, the Republican Party candidate, wanted to return the country to pre-war “normal” economy and freedoms. In 1920-21, the recession meant a drop of 2.4% to 6.9% of GNP. Unemployment was between 7% and 8%. Andrew Mellon, the new treasury secretary, noticed that every time Wilson raised taxes, the relative return from those rates fell steadily. Mellon convinced Harding to ask Congress for tax cut. Harding died in office, but Calvin Coolidge remained committed to steeply cutting taxes. The top rate became 25% and the bottom rate 5%, both rates above the pre-war rates. The economy quickly recovered. Unemployment dropped to 4%, and the share of taxes paid by the rich skyrocketed. What happened was the “Roaring '20s,” a time when average Americans started owning cars, radios, appliances, and electricity. 

         As Paul Johnson (Modern Times, 1983) says it, Harding was the last president to take a laissez-faire approach to an economic downturn. The result was that the decline that began in autumn of 1920 was over by July 1921. 

         Amity Shales (The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, 2007) summarizes the common misunderstanding of the period. The 1920's represented the excesses of capitalism. For the Roosevelt-progressive-liberal, the Great Depression was the natural outcome of this excess, representing the failure of capitalism. Again, it will take a certain form of courage to move against such common assumptions.

         Another step in intellectual courage is to re-think Hoover and Roosevelt. It will take intellectual courage to view the Great Depression as the result of the Hoover-Roosevelt policies of increased spending and increased taxes. The common view assumes that Hoover did little to deal with the depression, and that Franklin Roosevelt was instrumental in recovery through government spending. The depression could have been nothing more than a needed free market correction. However, as Amity Shales points out, the tariff backed by Hoover, the increases in taxes by Hoover, and expanded federal spending by Hoover, placed America in jeopardy. The new deal promised by Roosevelt was expanded Hoover programs. Due to the tariff, America did not have the trading partners necessary to lift it out of what should have been only a deep market correction. One could also make a case that the entitlement programs that puzzle both political parties today got their start after the 1936 election. On the Republican side, the failure of its leaders to provide a viable alternative to the Roosevelt story of the depression would hurt the nation even to the present. Many people forget that the period had two depressions, one in 1929, and the other in 1937, a year that would see over 15% unemployment. The Dow would not return to its pre-depression numbers until the 1950's. To put it bluntly, with all the government activity, it was not until Eisenhower restored confidence in the market and the future of the country that the country began to feel what it was like to grow economically again. It was government that made the depression “great.” Roosevelt started interest group politics, pitting one set of Americans against another. Roosevelt justified giving to one “forgotten man,” farmers and workers, by having a scapegoat against whom he could act. Two presidents, Hoover and Roosevelt, as well as their respective political parties, failed the American people at a time of crisis. The failure of the political class during this period was not the first time it failed the nation. One could argue that leading up to the Civil War, and the Jim Crow laws after it was over, were also colossal failures of the political class to guide the nation rightly. 

         This nation has already had laboratory of progressive ideas that required the constant intervention of government in the economy. Prosperity depends on knowledge dispersed among millions of people about consumer wants, available resources, local business conditions, and many other factors. This knowledge always changes. Government policymakers cannot gather and assimilate it. People must be free to use their knowledge. They must have incentives to do so. Market prices must be free because they are crucial signals indicating whether things are abundant or scarce, unwanted or wanted. The most important thing government officials can do is get out of the way. Business recovery, like prosperity, comes from the ground up, and not from the top down. The irony, of course, is that when Roosevelt described his opposition as “trickle-down economics,” he was describing his policies. For him, taking money from others through taxes, regulating others because you know better than them, and then having the government spend the money, is the true “trickle-down economics,” if wealth will flow from government to individuals. The expansion of the economic downturn of 1929 into a great depression could have been avoided had government not increased taxes, not soaked the rich, not increase the cost of government through jobs programs, and not manipulate wages and prices. The temptation politicians experience to interfere with economic freedom is one they must resist, if they have, they have the common good at heart. 

         The effect of the expansion of government since the depression is due to a false reading of the Great Depression. Today, according to the Tax Foundation, 60 percent of the population now gets more in government benefits than it pays in taxes. What does it say about a society in which more than half the people live at the expense of the rest? Worse, the dependent class is growing. The 60 percent will soon be 70 percent. More people have a stake in the persistence of the Welfare state than they do in capitalism. In my pessimistic moments, it seems as if the American people have already changed into becoming takers of the wealth of others rather than makers of new wealth. They have accepted the dominance of the nanny or mommy state. However, a side of me at least hopes that the American idea of freedom and independence are still in our minds and hearts somewhere. 

Star Parker, in her February 15, 2010, article, says that the awakening that needs to occur is to appreciate that the breakdown of Social Security, as well as Medicare, reflects the inevitable failure of social engineering. It seemed like such a bright idea 75 years ago, when there were more than 40 individuals working for every retiree, to provide a government retirement stipend financed with a payroll tax. However, it does not work quite as well when there are three, on the way to two, working and paying for each retiree -- today's reality. Of course, tax increases and benefit cuts, with the goal to make the existing Social Security system solvent, would only make a bad deal even worse for every working American.

---

[1] (Pannenberg, Anthropology in Theological Perspective 1985), which is the basis for the considerations in this section.

[2] A. C. Gleason, “Why Jonah Goldberg is Right About ‘The Suicide of the West,” The Federalist, May 22, 2018. Robert Tracinski, “Dear Conservatives: The Enlightenment is Not the Enemy,” May 18, 2018.

[3] Wright, Robert. Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny (New York: Pantheon Books, 2000).

Considering Green Ideology

             

This brief article concerns a divide between the political Left and Right related to the environment. It is an instructive difference, for it encompasses an understanding of economic freedom, of interpreting science, and of the role of government in addressing and solving problems. The confidence that so many have on the political Left that government does a better job than many citizens will acknowledge is not shared on the political Right. The political Right hesitates to use government authority when the market of ideas and the free exchange of goods and services will figure out whether there is an issue and if there is how to solve it.

We have a moral obligation to care for our environment. We depend upon our environment for our lives. As we continue in technological and economic growth, we need to be alert to the cleanest path toward that growth.

This brief reflection on the green ideology arises out of a practical concern that America and the West not cut itself off from an important energy resource that can enhance the possibility of human flourishing on this planet. The industrial expansion of the past several centuries and its accompanying technological advances has brought an improvement of the lives of billions of human beings. We average folks have life much easier than many of our predecessors due to those advances. Life on this planet is not easy. Human beings have struggled to survive and thrive here. Science and technology have provided a higher degree of ease and comfort and will continue to do so. However, the green ideology is prepared to lessen the quality of life for an illusion. 

         It is possible to scaremonger about climate change endlessly. The polluting of the environment is a wound that climate change activists use to dismantle free enterprise. Humanity had much to learn about how industry affected the environment. It has done so and will continue to learn more. To keep picking at this wound of the past is to generate anger toward the free enterprise system, a system that has provided a comfortable life for so many of those who participate in it. 

First, I offer a reality check about the climate history of this beautiful planet, our own Garden of Eden nested at the far reaches of its galaxy. Known for its expansive glaciers and the coldest temperatures on Earth, the Antarctica of today is quite different from its tenure as a subtropical paradise 53 million years ago, replete with palm trees, summer highs near 25°C (77 F), and frost-free winters sitting near 10°C (50 F) despite the endless darkness.

The earth has a climate history to which we need to pay attention. The historical record tells us of many warming episodes—and subsequent cooling periods—that have bedeviled humans for thousands of years. Bruce Bartlett, in an article entitled “Climate History,” June 27, 2007, shares the following information.

Plato, who lived from 427 BC to 347 BC, wrote about major climate changes that he knew in his day. Timaeusrefers to flooding causes by global warming. Critias refers to “formidable deluges.” Plato’s student, Aristotle, who lived from 384 BC to 322 BC, also recorded evidence of global warming in his work, Meteorologica. He noted that in the time of the Trojan War, the land of Argos was marshy and unarable, while that of Mycenae was temperate and fertile. “But now the opposite is the case,” Aristotle wrote. “The land of Mycenae has become completely dry and barren, while the Argive land that was formerly barren, owing to the water has now become fruitful.” He observed the same phenomenon elsewhere covering large regions and nations. Theophrastus, a student of Aristotle who lived from 374 BC to 287 BC, discussed climate change in his work, De ventis, which means “The Wind.” He observed that in Crete, “nowadays the winters are more severe and more snow falls.” In earlier times, Theophrastus said, the mountains there bore grain and fruit, and the island was more populous. However, when the climate changed, the land became infertile. In his book, “De causis plantarum,” Theophrastus noted that the Greek city of Larissa once had plentiful olive trees, but that falling temperatures killed them all. 

In the first century AD, an ancient Roman named Columella wrote an agricultural treatise called, “De re rustica.” In it, he discussed global warming that had turned areas once too cold for agriculture into thriving farm communities. Columella cites an authority named Saserna who recorded many such cases. According to Saserna, “regions which formerly, because of the unremitting severity of winter, could not safeguard any shoot of the vine or the olive planted in them, now that the earlier coldness has abated and weather is becoming more clement, produce olive harvests and the vintages of Bacchus [wine] in greatest abundance.” 

In the Middle Ages, people began recording the temperature and climate-related phenomena, such as the dates when plants began to blossom annually. They were aware of a warming trend that began around 900 and a cooling trend that began around 1300. We know that during the warm period, the Vikings established settlements in Greenland where perpetual ice had previously covered the land. Ancient Norse records tell us that they abandoned these settlements after 1250 when falling temperatures made farming less viable and spreading ice in the sea made transportation more difficult. The cooling trend led to heavy rains in 14th century Europe that were too much for the crops, leading to reduced agricultural output and numerous famines. In the 15th century, a warming trend returned, which lasted until the middle of the 16th century when temperatures again started to fall. 

By the 17th century, it was clearly apparent that a cooling trend was altering sea routes, changing the kinds of crops farmers could grow, fishing patterns and so on. Glaciers began to advance rapidly in many places and rivers that had long been ice-free year-round started to freeze in the winter. This “little ice age” continued well into the 19th century. Since then, we have been in a warming cycle that appears to have accelerated around 1950.

            It should not be surprising that greatest variable regarding the temperature of the earth throughout its history is what happens with its sun, something over which we have no control. The earth is moving around and jostled by forces over which human beings have no control. Differing orbiting patterns affect solar input. These shifts have created ice ages and the interglacial periods in which we are in now. Higher levels of CO2 track with those changes, becoming low during ice ages and high during interglacial periods.

Earth has been warming since the Little Ice Age ended 150 years ago, and its climate changes frequently. Human activities (not just CO2 emissions) affect local climate and combined have the potential to affect global climate measurably. Third, carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, albeit a minor one. The scientific debate is not about any of this. It is, rather, about the direction and magnitude of global human effects, and their significance when considered in the context of natural climate change – which has been occurring ever since Earth developed its oceans, atmosphere, and climate many eons ago.

The Earth warmed about 0.7 degrees Celsius in the 20th century. We do not know the extent to which human activity caused this. The activity is economic growth, the wealth-creation that makes possible improved well-being—better nutrition, medicine, education, etc. How much reduction of such social goods are we willing to accept by slowing economic activity to (try to) regulate the planet's climate? We do not know how much we must change our economic activity to produce a particular reduction of warming. We do not know whether warming is necessarily dangerous. Are we sure that the climate at this moment is exactly right, and that we must preserve it, no matter the cost?

The story I tell is boring. The earth warms and cools on its own naturally, usually the result of surface changes upon the sun. Imagine that. The temperature of the earth has a relationship to the sun. The earth is continually warming and cooling. I urge anyone to read the material at http://www.petitionproject.org. Read the conclusion of the document. The authors make it clear that the extent to which the earth has warmed, it means longer growing periods, lush plant life, and flourishing of animal life. It also affirms the need to explore all avenues for expanded energy sources.

         Second, free enterprise, when understood properly, is a gift of freely engaging in economic activity that encourages faith and faithfulness, hope for the future, and love for self and family in which the circle of those about whom we care keeps expanding. Poverty has been the norm for most people in history. For much of that history, looting and plundering were the means of amassing wealth. In the past century billions of people have been lifted out of poverty by capitalism. Capitalism, as Walter Williams puts it, meant that the path toward wealth was to serve your neighbor. You must get out of yourself and your needs and imagine the needs of the other and develop a means to meet that need. Capitalism encourages the development of qualities like faith in yourself, your ideas, and that others will work with you toward certain goals; a care or love for yourself and your family for which you provide material sustenance, and a hope that the future will be better than the present because of what you do in the present. It requires you to consider how you treat others, both those who work for you, those who are customers, and those who might invest in you. I do not support capitalism because of a love for money, but because of a love of freedom at all levels. Political and economic freedom are effective ways of organizing a country.

         All this is to say that a free civil society, a free economic sector, will listen to the arguments regarding the possibility of the danger in global warming and make decisions based upon what it hears. If it believes there is a problem, the creativity and ingenuity of millions of citizens is more likely to solve the problem than is the coercive force by a political ideology, politicians, and government personnel. Expanded government control over what citizens can buy is rarely the solution to a problem but will cause many more. In a democracy, if the adherents of a political ideology want to rob the public, it will need to deceive them by persuading them that the government is robbing them for their own good, inducing them to accept in exchange for their property imaginary services, and often worse (Bastiat). 

Robert Bryce (Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusion of Energy Independence, 2008) has persuaded me that energy independence in the way many political leaders discuss it is not achievable. His basic point is that America is no longer the leader in energy production, and that it cannot be. It does not have enough oil in Alaska or offshore to replace what it receives from other countries. Further, the use of biofuels, wind, and sun, will do little to place a dent in the dependence that America has on foreign sources of energy. This means that America will be dealing with the unsavory characters of the Middle East for its energy. He would reject the notion that the taxpayers should subsidize alternative sources of energy. This is a matter of wasting vast sums of money. Rather, America needs to embrace the free market, and let the market determine the best sources of energy. In other words, this author is rejecting the positions of both liberal and conservative, and arguing for some realism. America also needs to move away from the military presence in the Middle East and toward a diplomatic presence. In any case, the American infrastructure of needs attention from government, and it is not getting it. The United States can gain greater independence in energy through expanded drilling for oil, biofuels, use of nuclear power, coal, natural gas, wind, and solar. If the government gets out of the picture, drilling for oil in ANWR is fine, as is drilling offshore, use of coal, and nuclear power.  

            Third, there are political decisions based upon bad science, upon lack of confidence in the free choices of producers and consumers, and far too much confidence in government, that have put western civilization at risk. The West is surrendering wise policy in favor of allegiance to pipe dreams. Then we wonder just why reality seems to keep collapsing in on us like an abandoned house. Green ideology insists we do not need nuclear and that we do not need fracking. It insists that it is just a matter of will and money to switch to all-renewables—and fast. It insists that we need “degrowth” of the economy, and that we face looming human “extinction.” Yet, healing the planet and feeling all warm and fuzzy about it has led to the harsh political reality of greater dependence on authoritarian countries like Russia.

            Standing up for Western civilization this time requires cheap, abundant, and reliable energy supplies produced at home or in allied nations. National security, economic growth, and sustainability requires greater reliance on nuclear and natural gas, and less on solar panels and wind turbines, which make electricity too expensive. 

  Ideological predilections dominate the minds of many rather than dealing with the reality of modern life. Such ideological commitments have led to foolish policy and dire results. 

Green ideology has international implications. Germany would be wise to restart its nuclear power program. The United States needs to start building nuclear power plants again. America and Canada would be wise to commit themselves to significantly expand oil and natural gas output to ensure the energy security of themselves and Europe. 

America has gone from exporting oil before Biden to begging Russia and Saudi Arabia to produce more oil. America is still the world’s leading supplier of oil and natural gas. And we have billions of dollars in investment sitting on the sidelines; refineries have been dropping offline and energy companies transitioning away from the precise forms of fuel that power the globe. 

Begging countries like Saudi Arabia and Russia to sell us more oil when we have it here would seem unwise in the extreme.  

            Given the benefits Russia receives from green ideology, it is not surprising that well-funded, radical U. S. environment groups are waging an anti-fracking war on America’s energy security, as well as interests tied directly to Vladimir Putin. Victoria Caostes and Gloria Steffano say that for years, the U.S. government has investigated Russian financial ties to environmental groups that push for ending U.S. fossil fuel production and have successfully shut down fracking sites and pipelines, to the detriment of U.S. workers and consumers. 

            Americans should start paying closer attention to the ongoing farmer protests in the Netherlands, which transformed long swaths of Dutch highways into what looked like a post-apocalyptic warzone: roadside fires raging out of control, manure and farming detritus heaped across highways, traffic stalled for miles, and massive protests across the country in support of the farmers. Why is the Netherlands, of all places, experiencing such unrest? Americans need to understand what is happening over there because the ruinous climate policies that triggered these protests are precisely what President Joe Biden and the Democrats have in mind for the United States.

            The story of Sri Lanka, a small island nation in Southeast Asia, is disturbing to me. It is on the verge of total political and economic collapse after its president’s “green” policies have brought famine to the island’s 21 million people. From the 1970s to 2020, with the help of synthetic fertilizers, Sri Lanka had become self-sufficient in rice production. Sri Lanka once had a per capita income twice that of nearby India. Now it cannot feed or fuel itself. Sri Lanka’s government fell under the spell of the “green” revolution promoted by Western liberal elites. Advised by the Rockefeller Foundation, Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa promised to transition the nation’s agriculture industry to organic farming within ten years. In April 2021, he banned “the importation and use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides and order[ed] the country’s 2 million farmers to go organic,” according to Foreign Policy magazine. The Western green revolutionists were so pleased that they bestowed Sri Lanka with a near-perfect Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) score of 98, much higher than the United States’ score of 51. But Sri Lanka’s adoption of green policies brought nothing but disasters. Its rice production has dropped more than 50 percent, while domestic rice prices have increased more than 80 percent. Once sufficient in rice production, the nation has been “forced to import $450 million worth of rice.” The Sri Lankan people, angry and hungry, staged protests and stormed both the president’s residence and prime minister’s office. President Rajapaksa resigned and fled the country. Sri Lanka is the tip of the iceberg of how “green” policies promoted by Western liberal elites have brought miseries and instability worldwide. There are currently three countries in the world with an ESG score over 90: Sri Lanka, where government just collapsed. Ghana, where the national power supply has shut down. Netherlands, where farmers have revolted against the state green energy is a deadlier virus than covid When it comes to the Dutch government’s calculations of ammonia and nitrogen oxide deposition—the basis of climate mandates that would slash livestock numbers and put many farmers out of work—Hanekamp is especially critical of “the science.” He thinks it relies on vague definitions, excessive deference to expert judgment, and a narrow focus on costs rather than both costs and benefits. “We now treat farmers as polluters, end of story, which is a very strange perspective,” he said. The result was endemic crop failure. Cash crops for export failed. Widespread hunger followed. Without foreign exchange, it became impossible to import key staples like food and fuel. Unfortunately, its incompetent government trusted radical environmental advisers, many of them foreign experts. Sri Lanka believed it could become the darling of the “environmental, social, governance” movement, and in that way draw in unlimited Western progressive investment. Instead, it has embraced a policy of national suicide.

             Los Angeles, because the city is phasing out natural gas hookups in all new residential and commercial buildings effective Jan. 1, 2023. But LA is not alone. It is California’s 57th locality to introduce commitments to phase out natural gas, and many cities across the country are following suit. In a misguided effort to reduce emissions, localities that pass ordinances like these totally ignore just how vital natural gas is not only for our broader energy landscape, but also for families and businesses. Nationwide, natural gas accounts for 38% of electricity generation, and around 177 million Americans use natural gas to heat their homes and cook their meals. Beyond its prevalence, natural gas is also an affordable source of energy. Residential natural gas is estimated to cost almost one-quarter the price of electricity, which, according to the American Gas Association, adds up to an average annual savings of over $1,000 in household utilities. And natural gas is a clean source of energy. The U.S. Energy Information Administration notes that “burning natural gas for energy results in fewer emissions of nearly all types of air pollutants and carbon dioxide (CO2) than burning coal or petroleum products to produce an equal amount of energy.”

            Rigging the market to force us to buy a car that has a 200-mile reach and uses erratic and expensive energy when we already have increasingly efficient models in the driveway and tens of billions of easily accessible barrels of offshore fossil fuels here at home — and much more around the world. We have centuries’ worth of the stuff waiting in the ground. Which gives us enough time to produce some better ideas. Transitioning away from modernity and into windmills, choo-choo trains, folding fans, and candles is not progress, it is regression.

         The science does not support the green ideology, if the green ideology is accurate, market forces will solve the problem, but in the meantime, government needs to leave producers and consumers alone to assess whether there is a problem and if there is how to solve it.